Between Here and There
by Wanderlusting
Summary: Carlito doesn't want Trish to leave so he has to go to the extremes to make her stay...
1. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I hope you guys like the story.

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"Chrissy, what's the word for when you like want to do something, but you can't do it, but then you really, really want to?"

"Ria, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about," Chris told her, chewing on his gum as he flipped through some guitar magazine that he had brought with him.

"But I don't know what the word is so I can't tell you what the word is," she whined.

"Well then I can't tell _you _what the word is because you don't know," he said, looking up from his magazine to peer at her from over the top of his sunglasses. "You're going to have to figure out a better way to explain it if you want me to help you think of the word you want to use."

Maria flopped herself down next to him, kneeling as she leaned over his shoulder and looked at his magazine. "What're you reading?"

"Nothing that would interest you," Chris replied.

"You don't know that," she protested, then pointed at a guitar. "Ooh, that's pretty. It's pink and it has a flower on it, I like that."

"That's nice," he said, then looked at her. He smiled and tucked a piece of her flawless hair over her shoulder. "Don't you have that interview shortly, shouldn't you go get ready for that so you don't forget what you want to say like last time?"

"I didn't forget," she reminded him. "It just took me a few extra seconds to remember what it was that I had to say, but I remembered it all."

"Come on Ria, we don't want you to be late," he said, getting up off the couch and tossing his magazine on it. "I'll walk you there and then I guess I can stay and watch."

"What else would you do?" she asked with a cute shrug. He shrugged back and wrapped his arm loosely around her waist. She leaned her head on his shoulder, it be the perfect height for doing that. She ran her hand up and down Chris's back as he sighed a little. She had really great hands. They walked down the hallway to where the interviews were held and Chris let her go do her thing as he leaned against the wall to watch her.

A make-up girl came up to Maria to apply some powder on her nose so it wouldn't shine when the lights were on her. Carlito came over at just about that time to do the interview with her. She was busy flouncing her hair back and forth and he walked up to her. He had been distracted for the past week trying to think of ways to get Trish to stay. He really enjoyed her company, and he felt like he was just starting to get to know her, and now she was leaving.

And every little bit of herself that she revealed to him left him wanting more and more. She wasn't just a pretty face and that was such a hard thing to find in this business. He looked at Maria for a second to attest that assumption. He glanced at her boyfriend and knew that Chris had to be with her because she was pretty and not because of her personality or God forbid, her intelligence. He couldn't really respect Chris for that, but that wasn't his decision to make. But Trish was the opposite, she had even been in medical school, which meant she was going to be a doctor or something, and you had to be smart to do that.

"Are you ready?" the director asked as he turned to his cameraman to makes sure that he was ready to start filming.

"Yeah," Maria chirped happily as Carlito nodded.

"Okay, we are on in three, two, one…"

"So Carlito, we're here to talk about your match," Maria said, screwing up her face a little, "against Johnny Nitro, are you scared?"

"Do I look scared?" Carlito asked.

"Um…I don't know what you look like when you're scared," Maria scared. "I know what I look like when I'm scared though. It's kind of like this…" Maria pretended to act scared, opening her mouth in a wide "O" of surprise and shrinking back.

"Um, that's nice," Carlito said, looking a little strangely at the girl. "Okay, you can quit it now."

"Oops, sorry, sometimes I get carried away," she giggled.

"Yeah, you could be in a horror movie or something," he mentioned dully.

"No way, everyone dies in those things, and I like life," she said perkily with a cute shrug of the shoulders. "But are you ready to take on Johnny Nitro later?"

"Of course I'm ready to take him on! I'm ready to take him down and get my belt back," Carlito said.

"And what about you and Trish Stratus, you've been seen hanging out a lot lately, is there anything to that?"

Carlito gulped a little bit and then put forth his best winning smile. "Trish is cool. She's fun to hang out with, not much more to say than that is there?"

"I guess not, I mean, you could say more if you wanted to, but you don't have to. I don't know if that makes sense," she said, scrunching up her nose.

"Okay, and we're done people," the director said. "Maria, stick around, we want you to do an interview with Edge later."

"Okie dokie!" she said happily as she looked to Carlito, who looked to be deep in thought. She studied him, taking in his face and wondering just what he was thinking about. She kind of zoned out at this point, since she was Maria and everything.

Stephanie walked up to this scene, taking notes as it pertained to the show itself. She knew that Maria had just finished up her interview and checked that off the list. She had thrown herself into her work as of late, and there was probably no stopping her at this point. Her life was now just her work, and that was fine with her. She was going to make this the best show of anything that was out there right now.

"So does she have the questions written out on her hand or anything?" Stephanie asked casually of Chris.

He pretended to laugh, grabbing his stomach, "Oh, you're just so clever Stephanie, did you come up with that zinger on your own?"

"Yeah, which is more than I can say for that girlfriend of yours," Stephanie said, glancing at Maria, who appeared to be zoned out. "What's wrong with her, are her hairspray fumes rendering her stupid? Oh wait, way to late for that huh?"

"Oh come on Stephanie, at least she's got a lot going for her, I mean, she does have me on her arm after all."

She gave him the once over, "Yeah, just add that to the pile of cons."

"I'm not saying she's the smartest thing in the world, but you don't know her okay?" Chris said, starting to get defensive over his girlfriend, and he didn't even know where this was coming from. It just kind of was coming out of his mouth without him being able to stop it completely.

"No, she really isn't the brightest lemon in the barrel…"

"Look, if you came around here just to insult my girlfriend, don't waste your time okay, because whatever you have to say is just a lame bunch of bullshit," Chris snapped at her as he went back to chewing on his gum and looking at Maria, who did look really spaced out as she stared blankly at Carlito.

"I'm just saying," Stephanie said. "I mean, everyone is wondering why you would be with someone like her, I guess I'm just the only one who has the nerve to actually ask you what you're doing with her."

"Oh, wow, you're so incredibly special," Chris said sarcastically. "Stephanie McMahon is the only one with guts around here, the only one to ask. Here, here's your answer, mind your own damn business about why I'm with my girlfriend, how's that for a reason?"

"I was just asking, I mean, everyone wonders."

"Well everyone can shove it up their asses too, you can be first in line in fact, how's that?"

"I'm just saying, I mean, she's barely an interviewer, I don't know why my Dad keeps her on, she's not much of a wrestler, she's just…she's just kind of there."

"Same could be said of you," he countered.

"Now that's not fair," Stephanie told him, "I work hard around here to make sure the show goes off without a hitch. I do my best around here. Just because I'm calling out your floozy of a girlfriend doesn't mean you get to mock what I do."

"How about I mock you because you're calling her a floozy?"

"Shut up," she told him. "I don't even know why you want to be around here anyways, you're the one who left, and yet, here you are. You just stand around here, I mean, you serve no purpose either."

Chris rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. "If you came around just to bug me Stephanie, you've succeeded, you may go now. I come around because I want to spend time with my girlfriend and I have other friends backstage, thankfully I don't count you among them."

"Well, I don't count _you_ among my friends either," she shot back. "I was just trying to strike up a conversation, nothing more to it than that."

"You're annoying."

"So are you."

"No wonder you don't have a boyfriend, nobody would put up with you."

Stephanie frowned and turned away. "Shut up you asshole." She stomped off and Chris watched her leave, chomping on his gum. Every time he talked to that woman she infuriated him until he said something that always made her leave. He shrugged as he turned back to Maria, who was _still _staring at Carlito. He ran a hand through his hair and pushed his sunglasses up his nose as he wandered over to where his girlfriend was being creepy.

"You love her!" Maria said finally, scaring Carlito who had been looking over a script for the show. He turned to Maria and she grinned, "You told me that I was wrong, but I'm not wrong, you love her!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Carlito protested.

"Oh, you do, I can tell, I knew I could tell, I knew it, I knew it!" she said, bouncing up and down.

"What did you know babe?" Chris asked as she strolled up to her and wrapped an arm around her slim waist.

"I knew that Carlito was in love."

"Look, come with me," Carlito said, grabbing Maria's hand and dragging her back to his locker room. Chris trailed behind, trying to grab Maria back, but Carlito was pulling her too fast. She almost tripped over her stilettos a couple of times before Carlito practically pushed her into his locker room. Chris glared at the man as he stood up to him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Well if your girlfriend didn't spout off at the mouth, I wouldn't have done that," Carlito said.

"What is with people insulting my girlfriend?" Chris asked. "Look, don't do that again or your face meets my fist."

"Just get your ass in here," Carlito said, pushing him as Chris stumbled into the room. He went and sat with Maria, who was doing some kind of dance in her seat. Carlito looked both ways before closing and locking the door.

"Carlito loves Trish," Maria told Chris. "I didn't think so after what he told me before, but then when I was looking at him, and he was staring at the page, I knew, because he sounded like he did when I interviewed him. You love her, don't you Carlito?"

"I don't love her," he insisted.

"I know now though!"

"I may…like her," Carlito said slowly, drawing out the words.

"I knew it!" Maria exclaimed, throwing her arms around Chris's neck. "Did you hear that Chrissy? I knew it all along, I was right!"

"I heard Ria," Chris said, smirking in Carlito's direction. "So the man they call Caribbean Cool wants to show Trish his palm tree and coconuts, nice man, I mean, every guy and their father has been trying to get into those pants. If you can do it, go for it. Nail that blonde."

"That's not it at all," Carlito said, giving Chris a look.

"Oh of course not," Chris winked over his sunglasses. "If you want my advice on how to get her, you can never go wrong with edible body paint, I prefer the caramel-flavor myself…extra tasty."

"That's not what I want to do you pervert," Carlito said. "I want to get her to stay."

"So you can nail her."

"No, no nailing, no hammering," Carlito said, frustrated with Chris. "I just want her to stay, she's thinking about leaving."

"Really?" Maria asked. "That's news to me…or is it? Chrissy, is that news to me? Did I hear that before?"

"You never heard it Ria."

"Oh, okay, I thought I might've, but then I forgot," she smiled. "Do you want us to help you make her stay? I'm full of super ideas."

"You'd…help?" Carlito asked, not sure if he wanted their help, but what could he do, he was at a loss for what to do. These weren't the two people he'd go to for advice. Maria was on the ditzy side and Chris was on the cocky side, but they knew the situation and he could use some help.

"We'd help?" Chris asked. "I don't think I signed on for that Ria."

"Chrissy, be nice, we don't want to be rude Guses," she told him with a pouty face, sticking her bottom lip out. He frowned and nodded to her. Maria brightened instantly. "We'll help you Carlito. Don't worry, Trish won't leave, she couldn't with our three heads together. You know what they say, three heads are better than one head!"

Carlito wasn't entirely sure they were three heads, maybe two and a half with Maria's head. But he nodded, "Okay then."

"Great! She won't even want to leave when we're done with her!"

Carlito wasn't exactly confident.


	2. Chapter 3

"So invite her on the Copacabana or the Chiquita Banana, or whatever it is you call that thing, your show, you haven't done that in a while."

"Oh, and you could have roses! Roses everywhere!"

"Ria, roses and palm trees don't mix, you really should only have one or the other."

"But why? I think it would be romantic," Maria said dreamily, batting her eyelashes at her boyfriend. "I mean, surrounded by their pretty smell and the colors, did you know roses come in lots of different colors?"

"Yeah, I knew," Chris said. "But seriously, he's not trying to woo her."

"Woo?" Maria asked confused. "Isn't that what you say when you're cheering on your favorite team or something. Why would Carlito want to cheer her?"

"No Ria, it means that he wants to you know, make her want to go out with him," Chris told her and Carlito was seriously starting to wonder what Chris saw in Maria. She must be some sort of goddess in bed or else Chris was seriously attracted to ditzy girls.

"Oh, I get it," she said, kissing Chris on the cheek. "I still that it would be sweet if you had roses, every girl likes roses. Oh, and then you could give her like chocolate, because girls love chocolate and then you could buy her something pretty and it'll be so awesome and wonderful and…and….oh, and it'll be so just the best!"

"Okay Ria, I think we're getting a little carried away here," Chris said, trying to calm his girlfriend down. "Remember, the man said he doesn't want to nail her." Chris sent a knowing look to Carlito who frowned.

"I don't want to nail her, why don't you get that through your bleached blonde head!" Carlito said.

Chris stood up from the couch and got in the other man's face, "Excuse me, did you just suggest that I would dye my hair. These luscious locks, you think this isn't my natural hair color?"

"Luscious locks? What are you in a cartoon or something, you call that ratty hair luscious, yeah right," Carlito told him.

"Ha! Like I'd take hair tips from you, why don't you go stick your finger in another socket," Chris said angrily. "God, you're just as bad as that McMahon."

"I don't want to nail Trish," Carlito told him fiercely, narrowing his eyes at that blonde man in front of him. "I just want to get her to stay because she's cool, and she's a good wrestler. That's it."

"Yeah, right," Chris said, scoffing to himself as he went back to sit next to Maria. He wrapped a loose arm around her and rolled his eyes.

"You at least have a crush on her," Maria stated matter-of-factly. "Because you have that look, like, it's a cross between like, love and like, something, like friendship. You like her though, I can tell, girls can tell because we're girls and we have different wiring than boys."

"Is that so?" Carlito said, shooting a look to Chris. Chris shot him one back that warned him to take it easy on his girlfriend. Yes, Carlito was really starting to wonder if Maria had like special powers in the bedroom. She had to, there was just no explanation for this preposterous relationship.

"Yeah, at least that's what I learned, I don't remember where, but it could've been high school, or grade school, or maybe it's what my friend Patty told me when we were at recess," Maria said. "But she said that's why boys always think of sex first, because that's the way they're wired. We're like robots!"

"We're not robots," Carlito muttered, but Maria heard him.

"Well of course not," she giggled. "We can _feel_, robots can't feel."

"Look," Chris started, effectively shutting up Maria, for which Carlito was grateful. Her voice was starting to become just a buzzing in his brain like a perky, annoying little fly. "If you want to impress her, you know, make her realize that she's better off here, this is what you have to do. Get a compilation film of all her best moments. Once she sees how good she is, she won't be able to leave because she'll realize how great you are."

"Is that why you left? Nobody made you a video?" Carlito asked snidely.

"I had better things to do."

"That's why you're back right?"

"Look, do you want our help or do you want to go back to being the pathetic loser with a crush?" Chris asked.

Carlito had to mull over what Chris had suggested. He had to admit that it was a solid idea. If he showed Trish what she had accomplished, maybe it would incite her to want to accomplish more. Then he'd have time, more time to get to know her, to break down what she liked and didn't like. Then he wouldn't feel so weird with asking her out, or developing an even better and long-lasting relationship with her. He looked over to the couple sitting on the couch, Chris was giving him that damning look again.

"Fine, it's a good idea, what do you want me to say?"

"Nothing, nothing at all," Chris said, standing up and helping Maria off the couch. "Just admit it yourself man, you want in that blonde's pants, not that I blame you, it's probably really nice."

Chris left with a chuckle as Maria berated him and Carlito cursed under his breath. How he hated that man, he was so obnoxious. But he did have good ideas, way better than his ditz of a girlfriend. Now he just had to get time on the show and then to ask Trish to be his guest. That had to be easy right? It had to be.

Stephanie sat down angrily on Trish's couch and covered her face with her hands, screaming into them, "I hate that man!"

"What man?" Trish asked as she walked out from the bathroom, her ring attire on now.

"Chris Jericho," she said, her voice frustrated. "I would just love to put him in a vat of boiling oil or something."

"Banning him from the arena might be a little less harsh," Trish laughed. "But what did the golden boy do this time?"

"I just asked the question, you know, the one that everyone wonders, what the hell is he doing with Maria, and he went off on me like I was some sort of…I don't know, like…something really mean!" she said, groaning as she became an inarticulate goof.

"Well, maybe he doesn't take too kindly to people insulting his girlfriend, they are together after all, he must see something in her," Trish shrugged. "What he sees in her remains a mystery, but well, who are we to judge."

"I _should _have him banned from the arena. What the hell is he doing here anyways? Nobody gave him clearance to be here. He's unauthorized," Stephanie said, her eyes gleaming in a way that suggested she had the upper-hand in something, and that was something Stephanie always loved.

"So kick him out if you're _so _bothered by his presence."

"He was mean to me," she pouted. "And nobody is mean to Stephanie Marie McMahon and gets away with it. Bastard is going to pay!"

"You're way too angry for someone so young," Trish told her.

"I'm a McMahon, we're born angry," she said, getting up and flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Well, Chris is in for a rude awakening then because he has absolutely no clearance to be here. Do you want to come see him get escorted out of the building by security?"

"No, I don't have that kind of vindictive hatred for Chris."

"Suit yourself," Stephanie said as she left the room and blindly turned right, running smack dab right into Carlito. "Oh, hi Carlito."

"Stephanie, is Trish in there?" he asked, jerking a thumb towards the door that Stephanie had just exited from.

"Yeah, she's in there, why?"

"Well…that's not your business," he told her. "Wait, actually it is. I kind of wanted to have time next week for a Carlito's Cabana, you know, my show. I was thinking that I could have Trish on it, if she wants. But…can I have the time?"

"Why do you want Trish on the Cabana?" Stephanie asked, folding her arms as she regarded the man in front of her. "Do you have something special planned?"

"No, nothing," he said quickly. "I just thought it would be nice since Trish and I are becoming better friends. It's nice to have friends."

"Yeah, it is…" Stephanie spotted Chris over Carlito's shoulder and actually growled in anger. Carlito looked at her strangely, wondering if she was mad because he wanted to talk to Trish. Stephanie brushed by him quickly and almost shoved him straight into the wall. He looked back and saw her stalking her way to Chris and Maria. "Get out!"

"What?" Chris said, looking at her like she had grown two heads.

"Get out of the building, I'm kicking you out," she said, poking him in the chest.

"Don't poke me in the chest!" Chris said, swatting her hand away.

"I can do whatever the hell I want, you don't have the authorization to be here. So you have to leave. You know the rules Chris, every visitor who is not on the active roster needs to have clearance to be here. Or have you forgotten that in your time away…or because you've decided to surround yourself with doltish behavior."

"Dolt? Does that mean like bolt, cause they rhyme," Maria said innocently. "Stephanie, it's okay, you know Chris, he isn't a bad man."

"See Steph, I'm not a bad man," Chris said, trying to give her a charming smile, but it came off so fake. Stephanie sneered at Maria for a moment.

"I didn't ask your opinion sweetie, maybe you should go back to the sandbox."

"I don't have a sandbox," Maria said, shaking her head. "But the beach is like a big sandbox, but I don't like the beach, there's too much sand, it gets caught in between my toes and then it gets all over my house."

Stephanie coughed and stared at Chris, "It boggles the mind, really, boggles the mind…but really, you can't be here."

"Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, when are you going to learn that I'm not stupid," Chris said, then saw Stephanie open her mouth. "You better not even say what I think you're going to say."

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"I think I know what you were going to say," he countered.

"You have no idea what goes on in my brain Jericho, which is more than I can say for the brains of some of the company you keep."

"What is it with you Princess? Is it your life mission to make me miserable, because you're doing a good job of it now."

"Just get out Jericho, plain and simple. You don't have clearance to be here. You have to have clearance."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Yeah, it is so."

"But get this, I talked to your dad, I'm clear and free…"

Stephanie's face turned beet red as she prepared for the tirade brewing inside of her. Stephanie just began to yell as Carlito ducked into Trish's room so he wouldn't have to see the explosion. Trish was sitting reading over the script when she heard the door open. She expected a triumphant Stephanie, but instead got a sheepish-looking Carlito. She smiled warmly and invited him to sit next to her.

"What can I do for you?" she asked nicely.

"I was wondering if you would want to be on the Cabana next week?" he asked, and wondered why this felt like he was asking her out on a date.

"Wow, cool, that sounds like fun," she told him. "Why me though?"

"Why not you?" he said, not wanting to get into the real reason for her being on it.

"Well, I feel honored," she said giving him a kiss on the cheek. He pushed down the fluttering feeling as her lips met his cheek. She was a friend first, friend first…

_Carlito has a crush. Carlito has a crush._


	3. Chapter 4

A/N: I LOVE Trish and Carlito! Oh my God, I love them so freaking much it's like…well, it's not insane. But it's up there! I think they're like my #1 couple of all-time…wait…what? Oh…yeah, I hear that, I'm kidding you guys. No, really, I am, no, put down the torches! You all know who has my heart. But Trish and Carlito, totally #2.

Anyways, see, I'm confusing you all now because I don't like this chapter. Yeah, I apologize if it's crappy. At least it's long and crappy.

Oh, and thanks so much for all the reviews for the last chapter, honest to goodness I never expected that many, and I'm thrilled, THRILLED that so many of you like this story. You have no idea. So thanks and hope you keep reviewing. It makes my heart happy.

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**A week later…**

Carlito sat in his dressing room, thinking over what he was going to say in the ring later that evening. Trish was going to be on his show tonight, and he wanted to be sure that he knew what he was going to say. He didn't want to look like a stooge in front of her. He knew that he wasn't sophisticated or verbose like she might be used to, but he knew that he was a good guy.

He had been trying to think of what to say to her for the past week. He didn't want to make it sound like he was desperate for her to stay. He also didn't want to sound desperate for _her_. Sure, he really wanted her, but he didn't want to rush it either. And yeah, he claimed to be such a man when it came to some things, but Trish was different. She had a class all of her own and he didn't want to disrupt that, or harm it in any way. He didn't want to tarnish her image he guessed.

"Excuse me, _excuse me_," a voice said from the doorway.

Carlito looked up and saw Stephanie leaning in the doorway. She looked annoyed, but he didn't know if she was annoyed since she pretty much always looked annoyed for some reason or another. "Oh, hey Stephanie."

"Yeah, I've just been standing here for the past few minutes trying to get your attention only to find that you're obviously preoccupied by something."

"Sorry," he said shortly, then saw something in her hands. "What you got there?"

"Well, I was in the production truck and they told me that you had wanted something made and they gave it to me to give to you to make sure that you like whatever it is," she said, twirling the black videotape in her hands.

"Oh okay, thanks," he said, getting up from his place on the couch to grab the videotape in her hand. She pulled it away at the last second.

"What is it?" she asked curiously.

"None of your business," he told her, trying to make a grab for it.

"You know, if you're going to go on your Cabana tonight and humiliate my best friend, I'm not going to allow you to do that," Stephanie told him. "Trish is my best friend, my compadre, and I'm not going to let you bring her down tonight."

"I'm not going to bring her down," Carlito said, snatching the tape. "She's my friend."

"I'm glad we're on the same page then," she told him with a smile. "I just didn't want you to go out there just to make fun of her or spit apple in her face. But if your intentions are good, then we don't have a problem here."

"No, there's no problem," Carlito said, ushering her out the door. Stephanie was still a little suspicious about his behavior, but she wasn't really the kind of person who could read other people that well.

Carlito closed and locked the door behind her. He had asked the production team to make up a compilation of all of Trish's best moments from her time in the WWE. He knew that they were competent in the booth since they also took care of the video packages for Pay-Per-Views and what not. He had complete faith that they had come through with an awesome video. He went over to the VCR provided to him in his dressing room and stuck the tape in to watch it.

Stephanie was standing outside the door, pondering if she should go in or not. She wanted to know what was on that tape. Why hadn't she been smart enough to watch it _before _she gave the tape to Carlito? Then she would know and if there was something on that tape that embarrassed her best friend she could conveniently throw the tape into the trash, take over the production truck and make sure Carlito was the one that looked like a fool. Well, that decided it, she was going to go back into the room.

"Excuse me!"

Stephanie turned around and groaned. "What do you want?"

"To get by you, thanks," Chris said. "Oh, and don't worry Hall Monitor, I got a Hall Pass from your daddy again this week so you don't have to worry that I'm cutting class."

"Shut up," she grumbled, "I was just going to go talk to Carlito."

"Well how coincidental, _I_ was going to go in and talk to Carlito," Chris said with a lazy smile. "Isn't it just so strange how we both want to see the same person at the same time, it's like we have the same brain or something Steph?"

"Yeah, two more than your girlfriend," she shot back.

His face darkened for a brief moment, before he let an easy smile come over his face, "Come up with some new material Steph, we both know that you're better than that."

"Oh, I wouldn't waste my time."

He licked his lips a little as he stared into her smoldering blue eyes. He chuckled a little bit, "Well then I'm going to have to say that you're just as one-note as you claim my girlfriend to be."

"Fine, I don't care, you think I care, well I don't, I just wanted to talk to Carlito, I didn't want to deal with you, but fine, whatever, I'm gone," she said, getting flustered from being around him. He shook his head as she left and reached for the doorknob to Carlito's dressing room, but it was locked. He knocked impatiently.

"I'm busy," came Carlito's short response.

"Dude, unless you're naked in there or jerking off, open the door," Chris said impatiently.

Carlito cursed under his breath, but got up anyways, taking one last glance at the screen before going to the door and unlocking it, not even bothering to open it before going back to watching the videotape. Chris opened the door and looked at Carlito before dumping himself next to the younger man. He looked at the screen and saw a clip of Stephanie and Trish's match from Backlash. He nodded his head a little.

"So you went with the video."

"Yeah, it was a good idea," Carlito shrugged. "They've done a good job."

"You're seriously telling me that you wouldn't hit that," Chris said, gesturing to Trish on the screen. "You mean to tell me that all of this is just simply because you want her to stay?"

"Yeah, I want her to stay," Carlito said and hoped that he sounded convincing. Chris popped his gum and nodded knowingly. "What? What's with that look?"

"Nothing's with the look," Chris said, then idly commented, watching Trish and Stephanie's match again, "I'd hit that."

"You have a girlfriend."

"Yeah, I'm well aware that I have a girlfriend, but I'm not blind," Chris said. "So what are you going to say out there? Are you going to go the romantic route or what?"

"I'm not trying to sleep with her," Carlito said, starting to sound exasperated. "Why don't you go bug someone else?"

"Because you're so much easier to bug," Chris said immediately, his crackling wit coming through for him in the clutch again. "Besides, I'm in on this little plan and I'd like to see how it plays out. You're my own personal soap opera."

"Well change the damn channel because no matter what you think, this isn't turning into a porn."

"Nice," Chris chuckled. "So go out there and hit it out of the park already, I want the fairytale to come true."

"Shut up," Carlito said, wondering why he would bring Chris into this in the first place.

* * *

"Are you sure you want to go out there?"

"Steph, come on, don't ruin my buzz," Trish said. "I'm excited for this. I like thinking that I'm going to be on the Cabana, and we both know that Carlito is a nice guy. Don't act like you suddenly think he's a bad guy."

"Well, he's been seen hanging out with Chris, and where Chris goes, trouble is sure to follow," Stephanie pointed out.

"Maybe Carlito is changing Chris for the better," Trish said with a wink, then heard her music start. "Well, wish me luck."

Trish bounded out to her music, raising her arm in her traditional style. She walked down to the ring with a smile on her face, reaching out to her fans. She watched as Carlito held the ropes for her. It was thoughtful of him and as she slipped through the ropes, she knew that this was going to be fun.

"Trish, you are looking hot tonight," Carlito started.

"Thank you," she said, proudly, smiling at the crowd as it cheered her on. "I'm a little curious as to why you want me here though."

"The fact is simple, you are the best woman's wrestler in the history of WWE and I wanted to celebrate that, I mean, you think you're the best right?" Carlito said.

"I don't know," she said, "I think that all the women's wrestlers are pretty great."

"Oh no, no, no, I'm going to have to disagree, what about you people, do you disagree?" Carlito ask, holding the microphone out to the audience, who started cheering, letting Trish know they loved her. Carlito knew this was going perfectly. The fans were totally behind him and he smirked. "Yeah, this crowd is cool, they know talent when they see it."

"Well, I'd hate to argue with the great fans," Trish shrugged. "So I guess I should believe you."

"Well, if you don't want to believe me, with this face," he said, giving her a cute puppy-dog face, "or the thousands of people here cheering you on, then maybe I can convince you with this. Let's play the footage."

"Footage?" Trish asked, surprised there was going to be footage shown of her.

"Yeah, roll it."

The footage started with a little clip from when Trish had first started out, just to show who she had been back then. Back in her T&A days when she was simply the eye candy that many of the divas nowadays were. She was just another pretty face back then. The next few clips were from before she had become a full-fledged wrestler, a clip of her and Stephanie fighting it out, which had been fun as hell to work with. That entire feud had been the catalyst for her and Stephanie becoming best friends and she smiled at the memory.

The tape then jumped to when she had won her first Women's title in the match at Survivor Series for the vacated belt. She had beaten Jazz that night to claim the title, and the next clips ran the gamut of her subsequent title wins. The tape really showed the transition she made from eye candy to the best of the best in women's wrestling. She was proud to watch that footage and to see how far she had come. She looked to Carlito and had nothing but thanks in her smile to him.

Carlito was thrilled to receive such a smile. He wanted Trish to be impressed and he wanted her to feel proud of her accomplishments. She meant so much to the show that he wanted her to realize the impact she's had. And she really did have an impact, she had shown so many people that the women of this show didn't have to be just eye candy, they could wrestle to, and they could hold their own.

"Thank you Carlito, so much for that," Trish said. "I have to get a copy of that."

"Oh most definitely," he said. "I just wanted you to know how much you've done, you're great Trish Stratus."

Trish was going to answer, when the scheduled run-in happened. Edge and Lita came out of nowhere and attacked both Trish and Carlito, thus effectively ending the segment. Their would be a match announced for next week between the four and the rest of the night, Trish would have off, once they were backstage, Trish gave Carlito a heart-felt hug.

"Thank you for that video, it was awesome."

"It was nothing," Carlito told her, reveling in the hug. "I mean, I just wanted to show you how great you had been."

"Yeah, I've had a great career, which is why leaving makes so much sense you know. Get out while I'm on top, never leave any doubt that I was the best."

"What? No, I mean…" Damn it, Carlito was getting angry inside. That wasn't the intended message. That wasn't the intended message at all. He wanted her to realize that she was needed here. "Don't you think that means that you're still needed since you're the best?"

"Nah, it's other people's times to shine, you know, let the younger divas get that moment in the sun," she said. "I've had that moment, it's time to pass it on."

"But the younger divas suck," Carlito said bluntly, causing Trish to laugh a little, "Like Maria, have you met Maria? She's got no brains, none, she can't replace you."

"Well duh," Trish said, "but others I mean, like Beth, she's good and you know, Mickie's good too. There are others…well, thanks again for that Carlito, I really appreciate getting to see that I've accomplished so much. I'll talk to you later."

"What, but…" his voice trailed off. He frowned to himself. Damn her for not getting the right message, or damn him for not sending the right message.

"So man, how'd she like it," Chris said as he approached with Maria.

"Did she love it? I would've loved it," she gushed. "I mean, not if you did it, but if Chris did it, not that I have lots of highlights, I mean, I do in my hair."

"Oh shut up," Carlito snapped. "Please, just stop your whining."

"What?" Maria asked, looking to Chris for clarification.

"She just thought it was a nice highlight of her career, and now she can move on, that backfired," he snarled. "Great idea genius."

"Don't go looking at me, maybe if you had pushed a little harder that you were trying to get her to stay, but you were all vague and shit," Chris told him. "You need to be assertive."

"Yeah, assertive," Maria said, nodding proudly. "Just go for it, take the plunge, the dive, the…just go!"

"Oh, what do you guys know, she's not leaving you."

"Are you serious with this?" Chris asked. "She wouldn't be leaving _you _because you're not together, maybe if you admitted you wanted in her bedroom, in her bed, in her body, we'd really start to have something here."

"That's not it," Carlito said. "I've got to think, don't follow me." Carlito wandered off.

"Hey, I think I'm going to go see what's up with him, okay?" Chris said.

Carlito didn't know what to think anymore. He knew he liked Trish, but he'd be damned if he let that get out. And he'd be even more damned if he let Chris Jericho know that he liked her. That man would be incessant and insane and make him do something like show up in her hotel room in only his boxers or something. And he was not going to approach Trish like that, he had a little more class and tact.

* * *

Stephanie stood in front of the monitor in her office for a moment. She was thinking about that last segment with Trish and Carlito. She hadn't expected the video to be so nice and make her look so good. She had been wrong about Carlito, but she was right to have her reservations. It never hurt to have suspicions about people. She felt two muscular arms wrap around her waist and she looked over her shoulder.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey you."

"What are you doing in here?" she asked.

"Came to see you," he said. She turned to look back at the screen where they were announcing the inter-gender tag team match for the next week. Stephanie frowned a little bit. "What's with the face?"

"I'm just wondering about Carlito's intentions with Trish."

"I think he likes her."

"Good," Stephanie said. "I'd hate to think he had bad intentions."

"I don't think he does."

"So, do you think I should push her into his direction?" she asked.

"You know what," he said, "I don't think it could hurt."

"So that's it then, we're going to try and get him and Trish together?"

"Yeah, we're going to get them together."

Oh, there were plans afoot everywhere.


	4. Chapter 5

Maria picked off the corner of her toast, popping it into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Well, as thoughtfully as someone like Maria could. Carlito had spotted her eating breakfast by herself, and while he didn't feel bad that she was eating alone, he did see this as an opportunity to talk to her, or at least find out where her boyfriend was since he seemed to be her own personal interpreter. He sauntered over and plopped himself down across from her.

"Oh hey Carlito," she said sweetly, tilting her head as she looked at him. "Good morning."

"Yeah, morning, whatever, where's your boyfriend?" Carlito asked gruffly, not in the mood for small talk on this morning. He just wanted to discuss what he was going to do next week for Trish. He needed time to think about it. Maybe he had been much too hasty with his plan yesterday. He hadn't really thought it through. But he was going to change that this week, he was going think this through, make sure there were no mistakes.

"Oh, uh, he's sleeping…I think," she said, "or getting ready. I'm not sure which one exactly, I left before I could find out, and then he was sleeping and I thought it wouldn't be nice if I were to just wake him up, even though it was morning. But he likes to sleep late so I guess he wouldn't have--"

"Okay, geez, I get it, okay," Carlito said, cutting her off. There was only so much of her inane banter that he could take. "I just wanted to talk to you both about the situation."

"What situation? Like the weather? Because I heard it was supposed to be nice today. The weather person said that there was going to be sunshine. Which is good because rain makes me sad."

"I don't care if it makes you sad, I meant the situation with Trish," Carlito hissed. "I need help coming up with something to do for her next week. This week's idea failed, so I can't do that again."

"Oh, the thing with Trish. I forgot about that, only I didn't, I just wasn't' thinking about it," she giggled as she took another piece off her toast. "But I think she'll come around, I mean, what's out there for her?"

"Plenty of things, she's smart," Carlito told her, which was more than he could say for Maria. Whenever he talked to this girl, he felt like he was slowly losing brain cells like helium seeping out of a balloon.

"That's right," she nodded.

Chris walked up on the twosome talking, and picked a strawberry out from Maria's fruit bowl, popping it into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully as he sat down next to Maria. "So what's right?"

"We were talking about how Trish is smart, because she is smart," Maria said.

"Yeah, she is, so what about Trish?" Chris asked, a smirk on his face as he regarded Carlito and Carlito scowled, knowing what Chris was thinking. He didn't want to fall into the older man's trap though. For all of Maria's idiocy, Chris more than made up for it in his cleverness.

"What do I do now? Your idea didn't work," he said.

"That's too bad," Chris said, perusing the menu. "But what do you want us to do about it? Tell her that you're completely in lust with her?"

"No," Carlito responded, dragging out the word. "I need to do something next week in order to get her to see that leaving would be a huge mistake. I can't think alone….much like--"

"What do you want us to do is the question," Chris said quickly, before Carlito could make the obvious jab at Maria.

"I just need more ideas, _better _ideas, the thing that you came up with didn't work. She thought that it was a nice thing to highlight her career," Carlito said, disgruntled that the plan had not worked. "She liked it though, so that's something."

"Why don't you just ask her to stay?" Maria asked and neither Chris nor Carlito could think to argue it for a second.

"He wants to do something romantic so that she'll see that he's in love with her," Chris explained. "Isn't that right man? You want to do something grand instead of just outright asking her to stay. Either that or he's a big, fat chicken."

"I'm not a chicken," he muttered.

"Bawk-bawk, bawk-bawk," Chris said from behind his menu, snickering to himself.

"Don't call me a chicken," Carlito said, a little louder this time.

"He's not a chicken Chris, he's a person, and he's someone who is like that lion in Wizard of Oz, remember that? What was his name? Chris, do you know his name?"

"Cowardly Lion."

"Yeah! He's cowardly…you're cowardly," she said, turning to Carlito. "I still think that my rose idea was the best idea. What girl doesn't love roses?"

"Girls who are allergic to them," Chris said.

"No Chris, you can't be allergic to flowers silly," she said. "Because then why would you smell them? They're pretty, you can't be allergic to something pretty, only something ugly, like bees. Bees aren't cute at all, and they hurt when they sting you."

"Yeah, I know," Chris told her as the waitress came over and took his and Carlito's orders quickly. "But you can be allergic to flowers, it happens with the pollen, that's the stuff in the flowers."

"Oh, you're so smart," Maria said appreciatively of him. "But I don't think that Trish is allergic to them, so you should put them in her room and surprise her. That would be the best way, show her that she's nice."

"She is nice," Carlito mused. He turned to Chris, "And you're not exactly being a help."

"Why should I be?" Chris asked, taking a sip of his coffee. "It's obvious you like the girl, just ask her out on a date for God's sakes. Put me and Ria out of our misery and do what you wanted to do in the first place, ask the girl out."

"That's not what I want to do," Carlito asserted, though he was quite the liar at the moment. Sure he wanted Trish, but if he was going to go after Trish, he wanted to make sure that she was going to be here before he pursued her. Was that too much to ask? Really, was it?

"He'll only fully realize when he learns what he wants," Chris mused and then saw Stephanie enter the café and go sit by herself, reading over some files. He smirked, knowing that a good tussle with Stephanie would jumpstart his day. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be right back."

Chris stood up before he could hear anything else from his breakfast-mates. He sauntered over to Stephanie's table and sat herself down across from her, leaning back in the chair a little bit. Stephanie, startled by the sudden movement in front of her, looked up and saw him. Her expression darkened just a little bit as a lazy smile appeared on his face.

"Enjoying your morning Princess?" he said with a special grin on his face.

"I _was_," she retorted.

"Don't worry, I'm here to turn that frown upside-down," Chris told her with that infuriating smile.

"So what were you doing over there?" Stephanie asked curiously. "Dining with Maria and Carlito? Now Carlito's one of your little gang or something? You're eating breakfast with him."

"I am eating breakfast with him," Chris confirmed. "I thought you'd be proud of me, socializing, doing the best I can to fit into the company. So eating alone? Kind of sad huh?"

"Well, I would be eating with someone," she implied, "but said someone had other, prior plans, and so I'm stuck here, eating by myself. In fact, the person I was supposed to eat with…never-mind," she finished, knowing that it wasn't even worth mentioning. There were a lot of things around here that weren't worth mentioning.

"Sad," Chris pouted.

"So Carlito, him and Trish, got any dirt?" she asked curiously, gazing at him over her coffee cup that she was just bringing to her lips. Chris studied her for a moment. He shook his head. "You don't have anything, or you don't want to tell me."

"I don't know anything, the man is harder to get into than Fort Knox, at least to admit something…but whatever, I was going to invite you over to breakfast, but I've got to get back to Maria, Carlito was sniping at her."

"It was nice having a conversation with you in public that didn't result in a screaming match," she said honestly.

"I just haven't gotten my coffee fully into me yet," he winked before standing up and walking back over to the table. "You know, I was thinking, Ria's rose idea, not exactly a bad one."

"What!" Carlito said. "That's too romantic."

"Not if you do something with the cards, or get her, her favorite flower," Chris said, thinking about it. "You know, I mean, it'll make it seem like she's wanted. So just send her the flowers and put a different thing about her that you find cool."

"And that doesn't seem romantic?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but dude, you want to bone her anyways, and you don't even have to sign the cards if you don't want to. It'll be a secret type of thing, make her think that she's wanted. Then she'll have reason to suspect a lot of people and not just you."

"Plus, it'll smell pretty," Maria chimed in. "And girls like to smell pretty."

"They do," Chris agreed with a nod. "Ria is right in that respect. A girl likes to smell good. She also likes gestures like that. And if you really want to get laid, then you sign your name on all the flowers."

"I don't want to nail her, why do you insist that I do," Carlito said as he stood up. "Thanks for nothing."

"He's totally going to use our idea," Chris said as he left. He watched Carlito leave, wondering what it was going to take to get the other man to admit that he was totally crazy about Trish, and this wasn't just a lame attempt to get her to stay.

Carlito thought about Chris and Maria's idea. It wasn't a bad one, with a few tweaks here and there, he'd be able to pull it off. He didn't know what Trish's favorite flower was, but he was sure that he could find that out no problem. Then maybe he would fill the cards with all the different reasons why she couldn't leave, but he'd have to be covert about it. He wasn't entirely sure how many people knew of her plans.

"Carlito!"

Carlito turned around and there she was, like it was out of a dream or something. She jogged lightly over to him and he stood rooted in his spot. He wouldn't have left even if his legs were properly working at the moment. She had a warm smile on her face, and it made the rest of her face shine, and he liked that. She was just so full of surprises, every day there was something new about her that he liked.

"Hey Trish," he said politely.

"Were you just eating breakfast?" she asked.

He remembered he had ordered breakfast and then left, and shrugged sheepishly. "I was just grabbing coffee."

"Oh, okay, I'm going to see if Steph's in there, maybe join her. It was really great seeing you though. Are you flying home today?"

"Yeah, today, flying, you?" he asked, his words coming out in syllables rather than words it seemed. You couldn't tell him that he was actually getting tongue-tied in front of her. He wasn't a guy who even got tongue-tied, and he wasn't going to allow himself to get tongue-tied right now.

"Yeah, later this afternoon, it'll be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight," she replied. Carlito gulped as he thought about her in her bed. Yeah, not being tongue-tied was definitely getting to be a harder resolution to keep. "Nothing like your own bed right?"

"Yeah, right," he said, his voice raising a little bit. "I can see you as someone who has a really girlie bed, with roses or something." He was baiting her now and hoped that didn't come across as sexist as it sounded in his head.

She laughed, "That's funny that you should say that. My bed is really plain, it's just white sheets. As for roses, so not my style, I'm not that mushy." Carlito was stumped now; if he asked her outright her favorite flower, she'd know something was up. If he pried it out of her, when she saw the bouquets, she'd know she had told him. This was a no-win situation.

"Oh well that's good, you're tough," he said and she smiled at that.

"Thank you, that's really nice of you to say," she told him, squeezing his arm. "But I'm going to go eat breakfast. You know, next week, maybe you'll have to stick around and you can join me for breakfast. It's the least I can do after you being such a good friend to me these past few weeks.

"Breakfast is cool, most important meal of the day," he said in a daze. She was kind of mesmerizing when he thought about it. At the very least she had the innate ability to capture his attention completely. She was doing it right now, captivated was what he was, truly captivated.

She laughed, "Yeah, and we wouldn't want you to skip that."

"No, no…"

"Well, I'll see you later Carlito," she said with a short wave and with a toss of the hair, she was gone. He was left in her wake, and you probably could've knocked him over with a feather. Chris was right, he was in lust with Trish, or at least there was a driving force behind all of this.

Damn, he hated that Chris Jericho of all people was right.


	5. Chapter 6

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update, I guess I had a bit of a block, but I should be back on track. I hope you continue to enjoy this one and check out my new story. Leave a review!

* * *

"Oh, and you can say that the Stratusfaction is one of the best finishers in the WWE!"

Carlito shrugged as he leaned over to scrawl that on the card in front of him. If you had told him that he would be sitting here in a hotel room, writing out cards for flowers with Maria hovering over his shoulder, he never would've believed you. But that was just what he was doing. Maria had been excited at the prospect of helping him, and like a baby-sitter, he felt obligated to include her and let her have her fun. He was just a nice guy like that, he thought to himself with a self-satisfied smirk.

"It is a pretty good finisher," he told her with a nod and she nodded back eagerly. "That's not a bad one." Whenever he spoke to her, it was like speaking to an over-anxious child who only wanted your approval.

"I know. Do you think that she's going to like it?" Maria asked.

"Well, that's the plan," he told her. "I'm hoping that she'll realize that things aren't so bad here."

"They're really not," Maria said. "I mean, things could be better, but things are good too. But they're not great, they could be great, but they shouldn't be that great, because if they were too great, then we all might get so happy that nobody would want to fight and then everything would get shot to hell, right?"

"I don't really get what you're saying," Carlito told her. "But I think that she'll like this, at least I hope that she does like it and doesn't think its cheesy or something."

"It's not cheesy, you're not giving her cheese," Maria said, rolling her eyes. "Unless you think she likes cheese, then you can give her cheese. But maybe you'd have to give her crackers too, because who eats cheese by itself?"

"I don't know, Maria," Carlito said, already exasperated by her and he had only spent the past twenty minutes with her. "Maybe she's lactose intolerant."

"What's that? I've never even heard of the word lactoon," Maria said, and Carlito struggled with his own hands not to go and knock some sense into her. Instead, he just shut his mouth and went about his business.

He had a stack of cards in front of him, blank ones, and he was writing down various messages to Trish. They weren't too cheesy or stupid, he hoped, although Maria wasn't exactly the biggest help with this. To her credit the few suggestions she had managed to make weren't completely stupid or out there. But then again, she only had an idea or suggestion once every five minutes or so. He figured she spent the other four trying to think up an idea.

"You know, it's always nice to get flowers, because they're always pretty, but then when they die, it's very sad. But then you can press them between the pages of a book and they dry out and then they're like potpourri or something and you can keep them forever, and maybe if Trish likes this and you tell her that they're from you, she'll save one from you and then you'll look at it like a million years from now and it'll be very romantic."

"I'm not trying to get with her," Carlito mumbled, even though he knew it was a lie. But like hell would he confide in Maria. Maria would just run off to her little boyfriend and there was no way that Chris Jericho would take the fact he was right gracefully, there was no way he wasn't going to come rub it in his face that he knew it all along. That's just who Jericho was.

"Not even an eency-weency bit, not even the littlest bit ever?" she asked, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. "Just the tiniest bit, like the size of an ant, or a piece of dirt, because that's just so small, very, very small."

"I know it's small," he snapped. "Okay, look, I'm done. I don't need anymore help, you've been a big help as it is. I just need to finish the last few and then I'm done, I'm taking them to the florist and he's going to deliver the flowers. You've been a big help."

"Oh thanks," she gushed. "I told Chris that I would be a big help, and I was right, and he was…well, he didn't really say anything that was mean or anything, he just told me that he had important things to do, but he wouldn't say what those were."

Carlito could only guess it was to get a muzzle for his girlfriend, either that or figure out if Maria had had a lobotomy or something. "Well, that's nice, and once again, thank you, now it's time for you to leave."

"Okay," Maria shrugged brightly as she skipped on out of the room. "Have fun later, I hope the plan works because I would like to see you happy, and Trish too, everyone should be happy, I'm happy."

"Yeah, cool, cool," he said, practically shoving her through the door. He didn't mean to get upset with Maria, she was a good person at heart, but he was nervous. Nervous for tonight to go well, and nervous that word would spread that he liked Trish Stratus. He knew that he was surrounded by a bunch of gossips, and he didn't want to be in the headline of the Gossip Chronicle.

Maria stood out in the hallway for at least three minutes just standing there, staring at the wall in front of her. Maybe she was thinking something, maybe she wasn't, nobody could be too sure. She was just standing there, tapping her chin. She was so engrossed in her…standing, that she didn't see Chris come down the hallway. He was a little startled to see her standing there, and glanced behind him to see if there was anyone there before sauntering over to Maria.

"Ria, what are you doing?"

"Oh, hi Chris," Maria said, giving him a hug. "I was just standing here thinking about what I was going to wear later at the show. I think that I need to do an interview and I didn't know what to wear at all and I didn't want to look like a slut, because that's not really a good way to look because then everyone thinks that you just sleep with everyone, and I don't!"

"I know you don't," he told her, giving her an affectionate kiss on the temple. "I think that whatever you wear, you're going to look really good and you're going to knock everyone's socks off."

"Thank you, I want to knock everyone's socks off, not really though, because that'd be weird…where did they even come up with that saying? They should say something else."

"We'll look into it," Chris said patiently as he wrapped his arm around her waist. "But for now, how about we get out of the hallway before someone sees you and wonders if you're okay or if you need medical attention."

She giggled at that and Chris glanced over his shoulder again as he led Maria down the hallway and towards the elevators. He was lucky that Maria didn't even notice that this wasn't his floor to begin with, but he shouldn't have expected Maria to think of something like that. That was the beauty of a girl like her, everything got past her.

Stephanie tapped her fingers against the desk noisily. She wasn't in the best mood right now and she wanted to talk to Trish. She had been thinking over this thing between Trish and Carlito, and she wanted to dig up some dirt in regards to Trish. Her…boyfriend, no…her lover, yeah, that was better since he wasn't technically her boyfriend, was helping her with this plan, and she needed to get something from Trish in order for it to work.

"Drilling a hole in the desk, Steph?"

"Hey Trish," Stephanie said, finally seeing the person she wanted to talk to. "So you and Carlito have an inter-gender match this week, are you looking forward to it?"

"Sure, Carlito is a great partner I'm sure, he's a nice guy," Trish nodded genially.

"Oh, a nice guy? That's kind of a…well, you don't hear that out of your mouth too often about guys that you've worked with."

"I think you're thinking of _you_, Stephanie," Trish laughed. "Not to be offensive to you or anything, but you're the one around here that hates men."

"I don't hate men," she scoffed. "I just…things aren't exactly the best around here, but that's my concern, not yours."

"It is when you complain and hem and haw about the stupidity of men, and how you wish they would get a clue and just be themselves and not be stupid cowards who didn't do anything and were just around for the sex, and never wanted to commit, and it's all very depressing to hear from your point of--"

"Okay, okay, I get it, I should join an "I Hate Men" club or something, I get it," Stephanie said, interrupting her friend. "I was just asking about Carlito. Since you two were put into a storyline together, I've noticed that you've gotten a lot closer."

"It's easy to get closer when you're working so closely together," Trish shrugged, then caught Stephanie's look. "Okay, what's with the look? Why are you looking at me like I have something on my face?"

"I'm not!" Stephanie protested.

"Of course you…wait, are you suggesting that I have a crush on Carlito or something?"

"No, of course not."

"Good, because I don't," she asserted. "I mean, he's a--"

A voice pierced through theirs, "Knock, knock."

"What's this, Chris Jericho actually learned how to knock on a door, wow, I think I should check the window to see if there are pigs flying, or maybe hell freezing over or something."

"You're not alone," Chris said, glancing at Trish.

"No, I'm not alone, what, you expect me to just be here waiting for you to come and see me or something?" Stephanie snapped. "You were interrupting an important discussion."

"Were you trying to track down the list of guys you've slept with in the past week to see which one gave you the STD you currently have?" Chris asked curiously and Stephanie's eyes narrowed and threw daggers into his body. If looks could kill, the funeral would be tomorrow. "Okay, okay, I get it, you were just talking."

"Yeah, we were," Stephanie said. "Is there something that you needed, or are you just here to bug me like you usually do? Because if that's the case, then I suggest you leave before I get security in here to escort you out for being disorderly."

"You wouldn't!" Chris asked, in mock shock as he placed a hand over his heart. "Well that's a crushing blow. Oh, Trish, before I forget, I think I saw someone going into your locker room earlier. They looked like a delivery guy or something."

"Really?" Chris nodded. "That's weird, I'll have to go check that out, thanks Chris."

"No problem, always glad to be of service," he said, pretending to tip his invisible hat in her direction. He obviously knew what was being delivered to her office, but he had to act like he was ignorant so that Trish would be none the wiser. This had been the plan all along, Chris knew Trish was going to be in here with Stephanie. He looked at Stephanie, who was still glaring at him.

"Sorry you had to lose your best friend right there, do you want a new one?" he asked, pointing at himself.

"Shut up, Jericho and get out of my face," she told him as she went back to her paperwork, the last thing she heard being Chris's laughter fading into the hallway. Sometimes she seriously loathed that man. She scowled as she continued to work on her papers.

Chris, however, was going to check on Trish and see how she was liking her newest surprise from her secret admirer. Carlito may not admit it to him, but he knew what was up with him. There was no way a guy would do all of this for a girl he only considered his friend, there was just no way that someone would go through all the trouble. Hell, he went through a lot of trouble with his girlfriend, but he was with her, and he knew that in the end, all of it, everything that he went through, it was going to be worth it.

Trish was walking up to her dressing room and she paused to sneeze. Nobody said "bless you" so she continued on her merry way. She just didn't know what was in store for her. Oblivious as she was, she should figured something out when she saw Chris again, just leaning against a wall watching her. He must've passed her at some point and she hadn't noticed him. Maria walked up to him, and she looked giddy, but Maria always looked giddy, and also slightly lost.

"Has she gone in yet?" Maria whispered to Chris.

"She's still in the hallway, so obviously she hasn't gone in."

"Oh yeah," Maria giggled as she covered her mouth with her hand. "Stupid me."

"You're not stupid," Chris asserted and she smiled up at him gratefully. Sometimes it got really hurtful when everyone called her a ditz and stupid. Even if she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, she was still capable of being hurt.

Trish walked into her dressing room and was assaulted by, what looked like, thousands of daisies. She stepped inside and immediately started sneezing, her eyes welling up with tears as she tried to gasp for breath. Whoever had done this was obviously trying to throw her off her game, and she quickly made her exit, sneezing and wheezing the entire way. Chris saw her gasping for air and rushed to her side.

"Trish, what's wrong?"

"Flowers, allergic," she said as she looked up at him through red, blurry eyes. "Get them out of there, please."

"Oh, yeah, of course," Chris said, calling over someone from production. "Hey, you, yeah, you Junior, can you get those flowers out of Trish's dressing room right now, she's allergic to them."

The production assistant nodded and quickly scurried into the room as Chris led Trish far away from the offending flowers. Chris looked to Maria, who looked stricken, and then he caught sight of Carlito, who was watching from a father distance. Carlito looked angry, not at Chris necessarily, but that his plan had failed so miserably. Trish tried to gain her bearings as Carlito cursed at his failed plan.

Back to the drawing board.


	6. Chapter 7

"Well what the hell am I supposed to do now!"

"I don't know," Maria shrugged. "You could probably like, hire a skywriter or something and he could write a note in the sky and you could not sign it, but then you could if you wanted, because then it might get read by someone named Trish that isn't your Trish and then she'd wonder who it was from."

"A skywriter?" Carlito asked.

"Yeah! You could get it during a show and everything!" Maria said brightly, grinning and nodding her head like she had just had a brilliant idea. Carlito groaned and shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"That wouldn't work at night!" Carlito snapped angrily.

"Hey! Don't get on her case," Chris snapped back. "She was just trying to help. At least she has ideas, I mean, I don't see you coming up with anything."

"Well I don't see _you_ coming up with anything either."

"Look, if you want to nail the broad--"

"I do _not_ want to nail the broad, and she's not a broad either, she has a name," Carlito told him, giving him an almost snarling look.

"Yeah, she does have a name, Trish, and she would probably be receptive to you asking her out if you just, I don't know, _asked her out_," Chris said sarcastically, peering at Carlito over his sunglasses.

"You know, that might work," Maria added. "I know that I liked to get asked out, it's fun, and dates are fun, and you could have fun with Trish on a date too!"

"Look, I don't know how I'm going to get through to the both of you, but I don't want to date Trish, I just want her to stick around. I like having her around."

"So you can keep an eye on her, I get it," Chris responded, pulling his shades up and winking at his fellow male. Carlito didn't hesitate to give him a dirty look and Chris just smirked and added, "The first step to recovery is admitting when you want to screw someone."

"Like you want to screw Stephanie McMahon?" Carlito threw back. "Because if your logic is that any woman that a guy speaks to he wants to nail, then I guess Stephanie is at the top of your list."

"Leave her out of this," the blond man told him. "I didn't bring up Stephanie, so you shouldn't either."

"Well then stop bringing up Trish. If you can talk to Stephanie without the two of you having sex, then I can talk to Trish the same way," he told Chris, and Chris shut up at this, silently fuming at him for bring up the brunette. He didn't particularly want to think of her this moment. He'd rather focus on Carlito's obvious crush on Trish.

"Fine, I won't bring up Trish, but that doesn't change the fact that you want to get in her pants," Chris responded, and Carlito didn't say anything because he knew that if they got started, it was going to turn into a fistfight.

"Okay you guys, calm down," Maria said. "There's no need to get all mean with each other. We all have a common goal here, right? I mean, we want Trish to stay, right?"

"Well, I personally wouldn't have a problem with her leaving," Chris shrugged. "I mean, what's it going to hurt me, I left, right?"

"Then why the hell are you still hanging around?" Carlito asked.

"I've got a few reasons, jackass," Chris muttered as Maria rolled her eyes. Chris gave her an apologetic look and she smiled in his direction. All that did was make Carlito want to puke. These two were not helping him. But then it wasn't like he was helping himself either. He didn't even have a plan right now.

"Okay, enough with the lovey-dovey crap, let's get back to thinking."

"I don't know why you had to drag us into this. Just because you're too lame to think of your own--"

"Did you have somewhere else to go?" Carlito asked, glaring at Chris.

"And what if I did?" Chris challenged back. Maybe he did have places to go. He wasn't going to cater to every one of Carlito's whims. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't get Trish Stratus. Maybe Carlito just wasn't desirable.

"Stop!" Maria shouted at the two of them. "We _will _think of something. It's like one of my favorite books, The Little Engine That Could, with the engine. He thought he could make it up the hill and he thought he could, he thought he could, and then he did!"

Carlito looked at Chris, who just gave him a look that told him to shut the hell up, "Yeah, okay, I get what you're saying, Ria, and that's a good idea, stay the course right, stay the course."

"Exactly, but what course are we staying on?" Maria asked eagerly. "Is it like a track course? I'm good at track, or at least I think I am, I can run, and that's track. Hey, maybe you could do something with running…no, that's not a good idea, sorry."

"Yeah, running, not a good thing," Chris said. "But you know what? Maybe you should just think about it a little while longer and we'll think about it a little while longer and then we'll get back to you with what we come up with."

"Yes, I could use more time to think, oh, oh, oh, maybe a hot-air balloon!"

"What is it with you and the sky?" Carlito asked. Of course, he could've made a great airhead joke right here, but really, isn't that a little too easy at this point? It would be like being a big-league hitter hitting off a tee, it was just way too easy and he needed a challenge.

"Well, we travel all the time and when we're on the plane, I love to look out the window because you can see everything, and then the cars look like little ants and you can pretend that you're like something big, like a person, but you shouldn't use magnifying glasses on people because it would burn them, but then you shouldn't use them on ants either because that's not nice and I'm for the animals."

"Animals are a good thing to be for," Chris said sweetly as he looked over at Maria and Carlito wondered how Chris didn't lose brain cells every day that he was with Maria. He could feel himself losing brain cells and he had only been with her for a half an hour.

"I don't think that a hot-air balloon is something I want to do."

"But you could have a big message on the side, hot air balloons usually have pictures on them," she told him.

"Yeah, but that's not what I'm going for here."

"Candy," Chris said. "Get her favorite candy, you're her secret admirer, aren't you?"

"I'm not an admirer," Carlito argued.

"Dude, I'm not saying that you want to throw her up against the wall and have sex with her, I'm just saying that you admire her. You know, she might appreciate hearing that. That you admire her and that you would like her to stay. It might solve all your problems."

"No, I can't do that, look, we'll just meet later," Carlito said, hating when Chris had him pegged. So he was a coward and didn't want to tell Trish his actual feelings, he didn't need this blonde asshole bringing it up.

"Suit yourself, come on Ria," Chris said, getting up and walking to the door of Carlito's hotel room. "Don't sweat it man, sometimes we just can't go after what we really want, happens to the best of us."

"I don't know--"

"Cut the shit, man, it is what it is," Chris said, walking out of the room with Maria. Carlito stared at the door a few minutes later before he went about getting his things together to go to the show. He was going to think long and hard about something to do for Trish. He just couldn't outright ask her to stay. Who the hell was he to ask her to stay? He wasn't her boyfriend; he was just a new friend who didn't want to see her leave right this second.

He walked out of his hotel room and to the elevator. He was looking at the elevators, trying to guess which one was going to come first, a game he used to play when he was young. It was this distraction that didn't let him know that Trish had come up and stood next to him as he looked between the three elevators.

"I think it's going to be the middle one," Trish leaned over to whisper, startling Carlito.

"Oh, uh, what?" Carlito asked.

"The elevators, you just looked like you were trying to figure out which one was going to come first, and I'm guessing the one in the middle," she told him with a smile. A smile that he immediately found himself returning and then he wondered just when he had started to smile at all. She was infectious like that though. He couldn't help that she was catching like a cold.

"I thought it was going to be the one on the left," he told her, pointing to the one he thought it was going to be.

"Well you're on, what do I get if I win?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know…I mean, I just…"

"How about you accompany me to my match if I win, and if you win, I'll accompany you to your match," she wagered. Carlito thought about it for a moment; he would love to have Trish accompany him to the ring, it wasn't even a question.

"Yeah, I'll take you up on that."

"Cool, the race is on," she told him, grinning before she stared down the elevator she had chosen. Carlito laughed and stood in front of the one he had chosen to back. The two of them kept glancing at each other playfully, like they were going to start a sprint for their respective elevators.

But as fate would have it, the elevator that neither one chose suddenly opened with a ding and they both laughed as they got on board. Trish leaned back and shook her head. She hadn't had just silly fun like that in a while and it was nice to know that even when she was an adult, she could have a silly moment every now and then and feel like a kid. The fact that it was with someone she thought of as a friend was just icing on the cake.

"I'll still accompany you to your match," Trish told him.

Carlito smirked a little, "And I'll go to yours."

"Cool, I'd really enjoy that."

"Me too," he said, trying not to sound too eager. He had to play this cool. He didn't want to look like a lovesick little puppy in front of her. That would just feed into Chris's suspicions that he just wanted in Trish's pants, and while he wouldn't mind getting into those, he wanted her for more. Obviously Chris was only with Maria for what was in her pants, and he had so much, or _could_ have so much more with Trish.

Trish and Carlito walked together out to the parking lot to get their cars, parting ways there with a friendly hug. In another part of the parking lot, Stephanie saw her friend and Carlito hugging and she raised an eyebrow and turned to her partner-in-crime who was leaned against her car. He had seen them too and turned to Stephanie to see what her reaction to this was. She looked slightly bemused at the two of them.

"So what do you make of that?" Stephanie asked.

"It looks like two people who want to go out with each other."

"You think so?" she wondered curiously. "Do you think that they would willingly go out with each other, or do you think they'd need a push?"

"Definitely need a push," her companion said. "If he really had any balls, he would've asked her to drive to the arena with him, but he didn't, he let her take her own car. I mean, car ride, there's a lot of potential there."

"Yeah, there is," she agreed. "So a nudge in the right direction would probably be just what the doctor ordered, but just how would we do that?"

"We set them up, of course, do a double date kind of thing."

"But who are they going to double date with? Us?" Stephanie asked, trying not to sound a little desperate.

"We can't go out, you know we can't," he told her, and she sighed and looked away. "Hey, what's the matter, I thought that you liked our arrangement."

"It's fine, why don't we let them go out with Maria and…"

"That could work," he nodded, "That could work out really well…"

"Yeah," she said, looking off into the distance. "I better get going to the arena though, I've got work to do, I'll see you later, I'm sure. I'll bring up the dinner with Trish, maybe she'll want to ask him herself."

"Sounds great," he said, leaning over to kiss her. She pulled away at the last second and shook her head, "I've really got to go, I don't have time for this. I don't want to be late, and I can't afford any run-ins with anyone, especially the people who annoy me."

"Oh okay, so that crosses Chris Jericho off the list huh?"

"Yeah, off the list," she told him.

"Okay, I guess…well, I'll see you later tonight."

Stephanie got into her car and drove off. Sometimes she envied Trish because at least Carlito was forthright with his feelings, sort of. She had to hide behind closed doors with her…whatever he was. He wasn't her boyfriend because they never went out together. Her lover was a more apt description of him. He came to her room at night and left in the morning and other than that, he was nothing to her, almost an apparition. Yes, she definitely envied Trish because unlike Stephanie, maybe Trish would get her man.

Yeah, maybe Trish would actually get Carlito.


End file.
